Corals bleaching and dying. Help.

[coppertop]

I downsized from a 130 gallon 6 foot tank with 3x150mh and 8 t8's and a 55 gallon sump. Water quality was excellent and corals thrived!

Same corals I moved to a 60 gallon cube. No sump. Put a aqua clear 110 with live rock in it. Have an Aqua C remora Pro with mag 3 pump. Put some cheato in small open container in main tank. Various other powerheads.
Corals were fine for a couple months. Open brain looked great. I was water changing with sea water with amended salinity. Winter came on and I couldnt get to beach..starting changing with our well water...which is what the 130 gallon tank ran perfect on. And started having bleaching and non-opening corals. And a little brown algae on aragonite. Nothing serious.

Brain has not fully opened daytime..see some fullness at night. Star polyps almost all dead. Sand polyps changed from light brown to white. Hammer will not open..moved it to a friends tank last week. Toadstool is shrinking. I bought a torch coral a couple weeks ago.and in a week it changed from tan brown to almost transparent. Ricordea seem ok. Shrimp/sea star and fish seem ok.

Salinity is .024
Cal 440
Mg 1300
Ph 8.2
Ammon. 0
Phos. 0.2
Temp 82
Nit 0.2

One thing to mention as well. The light fixture on this tank I purchased used and I had no idea on age of bulbs. so I changed out the 250 watt mh last week hoping that may have been the problem. But brain is still not opening. Did not change the actinics yet. My LFS guy has tested my water and has no idea what the problem is.

Any ideas whats going on? Im having sleepless nights because of this tank.

[saltyfishd]

Time to change bulbs!

[coppertop]

Time to change bulbs!

Halide is changed..I need to source the PC actinics..could the PC's be causing be all this trouble or should I see improvement with the new MH alone?

[tkeracer619]

If the fixture is DE is the glass shield in it?

[coppertop]

If the fixture is DE is the glass shield in it?

Yes, its shielded. I can post a pic later tonight if that would help.

[mcoomer]

You should probably post in the softy or LPS forum for more responses. Probably not a lot of coral keepers in the newbie forum.

Parameters look good but is your tank always 82 degrees? I'd like to see a number less than 80, particularly for this time of year. If it's 82 now, what's it going to be like in July and August? Is it going higher than that during the day? My second thought is that maybe you should find a source for RO/DI water and see if that makes a difference in the short term. If it does then you'll have your answer.

Mike

[Sk8r]

What's the TDS on the well water? Wells dissolve whatever is in the rock or gravel bed they come from. If there's agricultural nitrate or phosphate, arsenic, iron, whatever, it gets into the water. Our approved drinking water in the Bethany OK district had arsenic in it.

[HanoverFist]

Listen to sk8r (always good advice). Get a ro/di filter or purchase ro/di water. the well water is clearly affecting your tank.

For now I would highly recommend running some carbon and whatnot to pull any heavy metals, etc out of the water.

[subpotentjoe]

Bad things can get into the well water pretty easily. It could be something that wasnt there before or in lower amounts before. You have no way of testing for things like arsenic. You could also be getting copper in your tank from the pipes the well water runs through (some well water has corrosive elements in it). You are probably fine with fish only but if you are keeping corals you really need ro or ro/di. There is just too much inconsistency with tap or well water and what could be in it for corals. I also dont think old actinic bulbs would be much of a factor if your mh bulbs are good.

[subpotentjoe]

and your temp is a little above what is considered the optimal range

[SwampyBill]

+1 on checking your well water & switching to RO/DI water...Never can tell what contaminants are leeching into well water month to month...Good luck with all your corals.

[coppertop]

Thanks for replys! I was wondering about heavy metal contaminants in the water ...I will switch over to RO water and see if theres any change. I never questioned the well water before. But theres definitely something wrong somewhere.

I'll slowly drop the temp back too.


Anyone have a guess as to how long it will take the corals to get their color back?

[chimmike]

and your temp is a little above what is considered the optimal range

82* water temperature is fine.

[R_Hudson]

I'd say your temp is ok. I wouldn't let it get any higher but that's not gonna be your problem. I would definately say you have a water quality issue. Do a big water change ~25% run carbon and gfo and start using rodi water. That should solve your problems

[tkeracer619]

82 is ok but it doesn't give you much room for error.